News

When it comes to legal hacking in patent law, the patent establishment seems to be well connected to the European Commission. After the ECJ opinion on the central patent court, the European Commission is now trying to find a solution to go on with some kind of supra-national system 25 countries that would be legally outside outside of the European Union. The Commission is inventing new ways of making legislation outside of the EU framework, especially when patent applicants do not want to see patent law integrated inside the European Union´s set of laws, the "acquis communautaire". — Comments: 0 — by zoobab19 May 2011 15:46

Notes on a secret hearing of Council delegations at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been leaked on internet. The European Court of Justice seems to have some doubt over the lack of control of the European Patent Office (EPO). — Comments: 1 — by zoobab09 Jun 2010 18:01

The Staff Union of the EPO sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, warning of risks integrated into the accession of the European Union to the European Patent Convention (EPC). They warn that the European Parliament can be circumvented as a legislator in patent law. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab11 May 2010 07:08

The United Patent Litigation System (UPLS) is an international treaty which aims to create an international patent court in Europe. Here are 6 reasons to oppose the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS). — Comments: 0 — by zoobab16 Apr 2010 08:41

A journalist of WorldIPReview recently asked FFII what were its views of the proposed United Patent Litigation System (UPLS), which is now being questioned by the Council in a submission to the ECJ. FFII had already published a press release mentioning the new push for software patents in Europe via a centralised and trusted court. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab08 Jul 2009 11:45

In its edition of IP Value 2007, the Intellectual Asset Magazine (IAM) was publishing an article about the Reform of European Patent System, where an expert mentions that the push for the EPLA is coming from the pro-software patents lobby. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab09 Jun 2009 09:43

The European Commission is pushing for software patents via a centralised trusted patent court that would be created with the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS), an international treaty that would remove national courts. This court system would be shielded against any review by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Thus patent judges would have the last word on software patents. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab12 May 2009 09:19

Hartmut Pilch, founder of the FFII, had the right vision in 2007 about the EU-EPLA project. Here is what he said about the future specialized patent court in Europe. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab11 May 2009 12:20

The Council seeks to legalise software patents with the Community Patent, says Mr Pellegrini, ex-advisor of Michel Rocard, former MEP and rapporteur on the rejected software patent directive. The ultimate goal of this move is to create central caselaw on software patents by a specialized patent court. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab11 Feb 2009 14:17

"Europe's 500", set up by the EU Commission in 1996 has now apparently become a proxy for Microsoft's EU software patent ambitions. Time to warn the Commission about MS's monopolistic... oh, hang on... — Comments: 0 — by pieterh24 Mar 2008 19:16

The Council and the Commission has answered a question from an italian MEP Marco Cappato on the quality of patents granted, and the future Community patent. The National Patent Offices who are populating the Working Group on Patents of the Council have really few things to say about patent quality. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab29 Feb 2008 14:43

Joff Wild, chief editor of the IAM magazine, admits on his blog that the creation of a central patent court in Europe will be instrumental in legalizing software patents. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab03 Feb 2008 19:13

The EPO will held its next European Patent Forum and European Inventor of the Year 2008 in Ljubljana. The event will be co-organised by the European Patent Office, the government of Slovenia, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office and the European Commission. Slovenia will hold the EU Council Presidency in the first half of 2008. The EPO is already lobbying the Slovenian Presidency to get a central court to validate software patents. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab11 Dec 2007 17:36

It seems, looking at the wording of an answer to a parliamentary question on patents, that the Commission did not receive the award "Worst Privilege Access 2006" for cheating the patent consultation of 2006. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab26 Nov 2007 11:10

In June 2007, the German EU Presidency conducted a symposium ‘The Future of the European Patent Judiciary’, which tried to give new momentum to “industry” calls for uniform enforcement of EPO-granted English-only patents by means of an international patent court that is closely linked to the EPO. — Comments: 0 — by pieterh31 Oct 2007 16:23

Quotes

"The acrimonious debate over the proposed directive on computer-implemented inventions might never have arisen if the patent litigation system in Europe had been unified, thereby eliminating the possibility of disparate national rulings on the same patent matter."

“We must moreover continue to attempt to harmonise the practise of granting patents for computer-implemented inventions at the European level. This is to be attempted by a common European patent court system (EPLA) in which the member states can voluntarily participate. Thereby a unified procedure and legal certainty are achieved.”

"The large multinationals who are pushing for the European Patent Court may be more concerned about the substance of European patent law rather than the need for a single forum […] The treatment of software is certainly one area of law that seems to concern large multinationals in ITC industries a lot, but I suspect that they look at the European Patent Court more generally as a way of influencing patent policy without having to go through the more skeptical European Parliament."

"Baumann added that the new court was not intended to "codify software patents ", but it was hoped it would provide better intellectual property protection for inventions with embedded software, such as mobile phones and satellite navigation systems."

"The current situation shows why such talks are necessary – a central European patent court will help bring the certainty that, in a number of areas such as software and biotechnology, we currently do not have."

"Applying the EPLA to software patents granted by the EPO would create a dangerous body of jurisprudence on an issue which was clearly discarded by the European Parliament and by European stakeholders one year ago."

"From a software-patents point of view, the EPLA would have far worse consequences than the rejected patentability directive would have had: not only would software patents become more enforceable in Europe but also would patent-holders in general be encouraged to litigate."

"All the European institutions and industry have worked hard and constructively on the issue of CII patents for some time. Europe’s high tech industry will support the efforts of the European institutions to find broader improvements to the European patent system that will particularly benefit the interests of smaller companies."

"Does the Community Patent restart the debate over patents for computer-implemented inventions (software patents)? Why or why not? Pilch: It restarts the push for software patents, without a debate.[…] The Community Patent plan doesn't even mention the subject of software, although, make no mistake about it, software patentability is one of the main drivers of these plans."

"The Council and a part of the Commission seeks to legalise software patents illegally granted by the European Patent Office (an extra-community institution outside of any control) through the implementation of the Community Patent […]."

"In July 2005, after several failed attempts to legalise software patents in Europe, the patent establishment changed its strategy. Instead of explicitly seeking to sanction the patentability of software, they are now seeking to create a central European patent court, which would establish and enforce patentability rules in their favor, without any possibility of correction by competing courts or democratically elected legislators."

"Now, currently, in a few cases in some very specific fields (biotech and IT) differences arise in how the national courts interprete the EPC. This can be solved either via a common court which would set EU (or EPOrg) wide case law, or by legislating those gray zones. However, the latest attempt to harmonise EU patent law regarding one of those grey zones (the CII directive) was the fiasco we all remember."